October 2010

October 30, 2010

Watching Death of the Doctor was bloody hard work, mainly because I had to spend large portions of it shovelling backstory to my long-suffering wife. This was entirely my own fault: I couldn't stop laughing out loud whenever RTD lobbed another continuity hand grenade and I may have missed some of the more contentious revelations as a result; I was probably trying to explain to her why I thought the reference to "Dorothy Whatshername" was side-splittingly hilarious when they were clarifying whether Dodo had died of syphilis or not.

But this wasn't just fanwank. Oh no. This was full-on fansex. With tongues and everything.

Full-on fansex. With tongues and everything

Just like an old lover who's come back for one last shag, this was pretty much what I was expecting from Russell's return to the franchise: an assured and confident performance, with just a hint of extra effort to remind you of exactly what you're missing, coupled with a cockiness that occasionally bordered on the shocking. There were even moments where it felt genuinely profound and moving.

Russell's foreplay and subsequent pillow-talk certainly felt reassuringly familiar: giant talking animals for the villains; an oblique reference to the Time War; a base that's been designed by Gerry Anderson; a plot that doesn't hold any water and a throwaway reference to the Axons. The only thing missing was the kissing.

What we got instead was an extended love letter to the past with the glorious return of Jo Jones (née Grant). And wasn't it just wonderful?

I admit that I was initially sceptical when I heard that Katy Manning would be returning to the franchise after 37 years but it took only a few seconds of screen time for her to completely convince me that Jo Grant was back in the building. Her performance was delightful, believable and entirely in-keeping with the trajectory this person would have taken in life. It helps that Russell's spot-on dialogue, where his love and respect for the character is evident in each and every line, gives Katy so much good stuff to work with, but it's still a remarkable achievement; after so many years away it could have so easily turned into a parody or a pale imitation of a cherished icon. Her performance is pitched so perfectly you can't fail to be moved when Jo finally catches up with her oldest and dearest friend. On an alien planet. In a quarry.

Russell's take on the 11th Doctor felt just right, too. I can't imagine the 10th delivering a line with a hint of blackcurrant, and even if he did he wouldn't have sounded quite so charming or as naturally bonkers as Matt Smith who, once again, shines. He really seems to relish those moments where he gets to walk down memory lane with 'his' old friends and you can tell that Smith is just as invested in the history and mythos of this show as his predecessor ever was. However, this being an RTD script, the 11th Doctor has to be ever-so-slightly mawkish - and ridiculous - too.

At least JNT saved his daft publicity stunts for the press releases...

Do you remember how, after The End of Time aired, some of us cynically joked that the 10th Doctor held back death so he could visit all of his companions? Even Tegan? Well, it really did happen. That's right, the Doctor really did stagger around a remote rainforest in acute agony just so he could spy on Jo for a bit. Did he do this before or after he nipped off to a large crater in Mexico to pay his respects to Adric? We may never know. Sadly, no one felt a damn thing when the 10th Doctor eventually popped his clogs but perhaps that only happens when he reaches his final regeneration.

In approximately 1,600 years time.

Assuming the BBC is still around then; 16 years is pushing it at the moment.

Oh Russell, you always have to go too far, don't you? I had to explain to my wife who Harry Sullivan was (whilst simultaneously resisting the urge to tell her all about Ian Marter's role in history of the Target novelisations, just in case I missed an important reference to Brigadier Bambera) but she didn't need any prompting from me when the Doctor casually mentioned that he can regenerate 507 times. She knew damn well that he only has 13 lives and 12 regenerations, which is more than can be said for Paul McGann when he was actually playing the part.

Russell wonders why such an arbitrary limit should catch on with the general public when it was clearly just an expedient plot point back in 1976, conveniently forgetting the fact that the series has used this limit to drive many of its more high-profile stories, including an anniversary special (although offering the Master a new life cycle for his assistance ruins the conceit somewhat) and The 1996 TV Movie With The Pertwee Logo On It. Not to mention Mawdryn Undead, The Keeper of Traken and one whole season featuring Colin Baker, which I just did. Of course it bloody caught on.

Does my wife lie awake at night pondering the significance of this upheaval to decades of established continuity? I seriously doubt it (I"ll have to check) but at the risk of sounding both churlish and childish, it really pissed me off.

You could argue that the line simply exists to generate publicity for the episode, which is fair enough, it's certainly succeeded, but it has, intentionally or not, overshadowed everything else (including this review). The press coverage should have been about the return of Jo Grant and the 11th Doctor, not a debate about whether the show's hero is practically immortal or not. At least JNT saved his daft publicity stunts for the press releases. Assuming of course that this is a just a throwaway joke and not a stone-cold fact. The papers have taken it at face value, as have some fans (I've seen the Time War used as an excuse already). For some, whether we like it or not, the series has just overcome an obstacle that has been looming on the horizon like The Watcher with some really serious news.

Of course I don't advocate for one second that the series should end with the death of the 13th incarnation, even if it does happen to coincide with the death of the corporation that spawned him. I had just hoped that when the time came it would form part of an exciting adventure where the stakes have never been higher and where the solution is ingenious and means something. Even if the line is completely ignored down the road, and I strongly suspect that it will be, the urgency surrounding the concept has probably been diluted in the public's eye, whether they watched this episode or not. And that's sad and pointless, if you ask me..

This is a shame because as a celebration of Doctor Who this adventure beats The Five Doctors into a cocked hat.

I've been grooming a small boy...

For several months now I've been grooming a small boy. I met him at a wedding and I was introduced to him as a Doctor Who expert. The boy was impressed - he was a hardcore New Series fan who could reel off encyclopaedic facts about the Slitheen and the Judoon with the very same fervour I used to reserve for facts about Zygons and Krynoids. Throughout the wedding I would find him tugging at my shirt sleeve with questions like, "What's The Key of Marinus about?" or "How did the Time Lords exile the Doctor to Earth?" and "Is The Key to Time worth buying if I save up all my birthday money?".

This boy was acutely aware that an entire universe of ancient Who-ness existed out there but, unsurprisingly, all of his pocket money was invested in keeping up with the never-ending supply of New Series guff and he was far too young to be let loose on YouTube. And so, for him, the universe that we now call The Classic Series existed just out of his reach. When I was his age I would stare at black and white images of Daleks gliding across Westminster Bridge and I would imagine what a Dalek invasion of our planet would actually look like, and now this lad was doing the exact same thing all these years later.

So I've been lending him my DVDs and shattering his illusions.

But seriously, he's been lapping them up (even The Space Museum) and so, when we were treated to what I can only describe as a YouTube-style clip montage coupled to more references to 1970s Doctor Who than is probably healthy, I can only imagine his utter delight. He would have got the Peladon references straight away. He would have known who Jo Grant was and why she was so important. And he would have been able to tell his mates at school what Metebelis III was all about. The Karfel reference would have sailed right over his head but I'm not that cruel.

We've come a long way from mumbled, obscure references to Gallifrey and throwaway dialogue about Davros and Venom Grubs.

But if that boy was happy then that's nothing compared to the joy felt by those of us who actually lived through those years. To be reminded that we're still watching the same story, on the same channel, with the same sense of wonder provided a powerful, if slightly odd, rush.

Continuity has never been so tight and so loose

Paradoxically, continuity has never been so tight and yet so loose. We are living in a world where black and white photographs of William Hartnell can appear as plot points on prime-time BBC1 and where a sequel to The Carnival of Monsters can play to packed crowds at Wembley Stadium, but at the same time we are living in a world where remakes of arguably canonical novels are replaced wholesale by televisual remakes and where a throwaway line in a spin-off watched by less than two million people can potentially destroy - or at least problematise - years of comic book storylines, audio plays and chocolate bar wrappers. And all on the whim of a writer who was, and I quote, "hooting" when he wrote it.

I'm as happy as the next fan that Ian and Barbara got married ("teachers - the very first companions - please shut up") and I enjoyed the frankly comical notion that the couple have never aged, but even I can see that this final shag for old times sake has left the apartment in a right old state.

It's scuppered any plans for one last walk-on for William Russell for a start, and up until the last few seconds at least, it could have been on the cards.

I think it's time to send that kid a copy of The Deadly Assassin. Just in case.

October 29, 2010

Stuart Ian Burns witnessed The Sarah Jane Adventures: Death of the Doctor

The Green Death was broadcast before I was born, Jo Grant leaving the Doctor before I was even conceived. Yet seeing Katy Manning clumsily burst through the doors on the fake funeral presided over by the Buzzie, Dizzie, Ziggy and Flaps from The Jungle Book, I'm still filled to the brim with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, giggling at the sight of this older version of the girl who broke Mike Yates’s heart now breaking a vase, words spilling out of her like the Doctor himself with post-regenerative verbal diarriah, a young endogenous mix of her own husband and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles at her side.

If nothing else, Death of the Doctor is a successful demonstration of the power of merchandising, the ability of the videos then dvds, novels and audios to keep a character alive, pickled in amber at the age she was when she originally appeared in the programme and making her important and much loved even to those of us whose first identifiable memory of the programme is Leela and K9 tracking through a corridor in some story or other (The Sun Makers?) so that when she does re-emerge “baked” our hearts leap on greeting an old friend.

Still waiting for my ownDoctor Who girl so that we can make some, I don’t know what Jo’s significance is for any children watching; it’s a few year since School Reunion and even though that story will probably still be present to them for much the same reason Timelashis unfortunately to us, it’s not a bad idea that a new set of youngsters discovering the franchise for the first time should be introduced to the concept that the Doctor had a different face and companions and history before the new married couple, that same story should be roughly retold from a slightly different perspective, with some different chaps with wings.

My guess is that at least initially a lot of this material will head on over their heads except for the useful information that Amy and Rory are on a honeymoon whilst this adventure is going on, the youngsters giggling instead at the Muppet vultures and hiss at another dodgy authority figure whilst the adults are enjoying a meditation on memory, of old and new adventures, of finding a stimulating place in the world even after you’ve done what could have been the most exciting thing in your life. In this script, Russell T Davies proves that it’s possible to write for both age groups without resorting to dated Terminator references.

And both adults and kids can agree that Matt Smith’s version of the Doctor has now clicked, the actor inhabiting the skin of the character with supreme confidence, the weight of a millennia travel gathered across his shoulders. What we have here is (along with the climax to his first series) evidence that he’s clearly consolidated his approach, so much so that in places (aided it has to be said by a writer who’s clearly enjoying the opportunity to write for a Doctor he didn’t initiate) he almost manages to unseat the title character from her own series. When Matt suggested in a recent DWM interview: “You’ve got to bed into this part. I’m going to get better. I’m going to push the part to its limit”, he wasn't lying.

So well does he capture the mix of dottiness and sober reflection and fiery danger at the heart of the timelord, that it's almost impossible to tell how accurate Davies’s dialogue is in relation to the Eleventh Doctor; rather like Paul McGann reading Tom’s previously abandoned words for the audio Shada, Smith's able to make the words his own. Davies could just as well be giving him the full Tennant and I’m not sure would noticed. Not that it stops the ticks of relevant previous Doctors from seeping through, a Tenth like growl when faced with a decision in an air duct, a quite Pertweesque “yes” in agreement at the relief of a still living Smith and Jones in a lead lined coffin.

With so much else happening, it’s also a pleasure to see the kids being given to emotional weightlifting too; whilst some might find it difficult to care for the plight of a teenager travelling the world as part of a family tree that seems to have an abundance of disposable income, albeit aiding worthy causes, there must be children watching who for various reasons have also been farmed off to older relatives losing contact with their parents. With Davies offering a rare occasion when Haresh isn't simple straight man and genuine father figure to Rani, the writer's big theme in this secondary storyline that parents are good, something most of us can agree with.

Death of the Doctor is, then, one of the few occasions, blue little man group accepted, when Sarah Jane Adventures genuinely aspires to be more than programme just for children. Sam Watt’s music brings an epic quality to a story, which like some of the best classic Who, is ultimately told in about three rooms, a corridor, some ducting and a quarry. Ashley Way’s direction favours the close-up, all the better to capture the obvious chemistry between Lis and Katy born from years spent on the convention circuit together, the former graciously seceding the focus for a couple of weeks to a fellow actress reliving her youth.

In the final scene, Davies offers his equivalent of God's Final Message to His Creation, retconning the thematic undercurrent begun in the first season of nu-Who of the Doctor’s positive effect on the people he touches, essentially clearing up the grey skies, brushing off the clouds and cheering up a range of classic companions, taking off the gloomy mask of tragedy fitted on them by spin-off authors in the wilderness years, at least the ones still alive on Earth in whatever year this season of SJA is set in (sorry Dodo) which for some of us was rather more potent than the Doctor’s apparent publicity baiting new regenerative cycle.

On first inspection this seems like the writer disregarding even criticising the very merchandising that gave his returning character the life and relevance which made this story psychologically intelligible to most of us of a certain other age. But in fact, he’s been rather more sensitive. Glance through the relevant wikia pages and we discover that with the exception of Ace, whose timeline is a mess anyway, he’s simply adding to their on-going stories and in the case of Ben and Polly inadvertently offering a third act happy ending to love story told across decades via short fiction in the style of When Harry Met Sally. In other words, returning me to the merchandise that led me to this story in the first place.

Next Week: Challenge of the Gobots.

All these places had their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I've loved them all

October 27, 2010

Of the many things my teenage self – heavy with the burden of carrying a torch for Doctor Who through its darkest, most unloved days – would struggle to believe about the impossible riches to come in the new century, it’s fair to say a sequel to Carnival of Monsters at Wembley Arena would be pretty high on the list.

A couple of weeks after its debut in north London, I watched that sequel unfolding in a similarly cavernous tram shed in Manchester. But before the show had even started, it was obvious I was living in a much changed world from the one where the 17-year-old me and my Manchester-based pen friend Stuart Mitchell (we’d met several years earlier through the DWAS, bonding over an ardent fascination for Nicola Bryant’s chest) had watched Jon Pertwee take a valedictory turn as the Doctor at a considerably smaller theatre in the same city.

For a start, the train my nephews and I rode across the Pennines from Leeds was like the Doctor Who Express: a Smilers mask here, a bow tie and tweed jacket combo there; Dalek rucksack to the left, sonic screwdriver to the right. And then there was the giddy thrill of taking our seats in the tiered terrace of the MEN and looking down at the thousands – thousands – of excited faces waiting expectantly for the afternoon’s adventure to begin.

And that’s why, when the band struck up their rendition of the Who theme – the soundtrack to my life, essentially - and the series five titles burst into flame on the big screen, and the kids cheered and whooped, I had to fight back the overwhelming urge to burst into tears.

This is clearly A Bit Silly, whichever way you slice it. But no-one who lived through those wilderness years, when the biggest thrill you could hope for was Who getting the lead feature on John Craven’s Back Pages, could fail to be moved by the sight, and the sound, of all those children in absolute thrall to our hero; by the sheer scale of this thing. By the crackle of energy created by 10,000 people all in love with the same idea. I guess it’s what football fans must feel most Saturday afternoons.

And, like many a dreary mid-table clash, you could argue the anticipation is better than the reality. Because some of the criticisms levelled at Doctor Who Live are valid: yes, much of this show’s two hour running time is taken up by Nigel Planer introducing some monsters, said monsters coming out and running about a bit, and then going back inside again. Which is fine if you’re lucky enough to be sitting in the front stalls – where, unforgivably, all the audience interaction takes place – but a bit meh if you’re stuck in the cheap (i.e. still hideously expensive, but further away) seats.

But, for me, that wasn’t really the point. The show’s whole USP may have been Doctor Who Live but, as far as I was concerned, all the best stuff (music aside) was taking place on screen. And I’m not just talking about the brilliantly inventive use of a digital Matt Smith (who totally nails it, as ever): I’m talking about the clips and montages playing out behind Ben Foster’s terrific band: the thrilling canter through series five to the sound of the Eleventh Doctor’s trademark battle march; Amelia Pond’s impossible journey with the mad man in a box soundtracked by the haunting strains of Amy’s Theme; a nostalgic canter through the Doctor’s first 10 regenerations (only another 497 to go, eh?). It's like all the best bits of Doctor Who, neatly packaged up and fired straight at your temporal lobe.

And I know that’s a bit soft, cos I’m talking about paying 40 quid to watch clips of programmes I already have stashed away on my DVD shelves. But it’s all about the context: the communal experience of enjoying Doctor Who in the way, a long time ago in an Odeon far, far away, we once enjoyed Star Wars – pretty exciting if, until recently, your only experience of Who on the big screen was several hundred saddoes sitting about watching The Daemons in a hotel in Coventry.

I ran into my old friend Mark Wright, who I hadn’t seen for years, by the merchandise stall (£25 a pop for the series five vanilla DVDs, since you ask). He’s now something big in Big Finish, and has Katy Manning on speed-dial. 20 years ago, when we’d been teenagers and Doctor Who was marginally less popular than Pages from Ceefax, we were part of a loose collective of fans who used to meet on Sunday afternoons in the West Yorkshire Peace Centre.“I think I even spent Christmas Eve there once,” Mark lamented.“It wouldn’t have been so bad if we'd actually been using the Peace Centre to do something to help world peace,” I said.“No,” he sighed. “We were using it to watch The Keys of Marinus.”

Now family men, we both boggled at how an event like today’s could even exist, agreeing that, while Doctor Who Live is what it is, anyone who’s ever cared about this daft old programme really should make the effort to go, just to experience the electric thrill of what it means to live in a world where the Doctor is not just popular, but loved.

Later, I thought that maybe my urge to cry wasn’t so silly, after all. Because how many other shows, how many other things, allow you to plug directly into the same evolving narrative that existed in your childhood? Anyone who watched the return of Jo Grant to our screens this week must have felt that same, undiluted Proustian rush. And some horrible, cynical people try to give the things that produce that rush reductive names like “fanwank”, as if to imply they’re too restlessly innovative and forward-looking to wallow in the past like the rest of us, and that Doctor Who should only ever keep driving ever onwards, never looking back. Which, for a show with a near half-century legacy, is preposterous: you might as well ask your parents never to discuss your school days.

And when I’m plugging into the narrative of my childhood, I’m plugging into a maelstrom of other complex memories and emotions. Like the days when my Dad, who I miss every day, used to take me around different Leeds city libraries to find Target novelisations I hadn’t read, or the days when I’d watch Doctor Who at my Grandma and Grandad’s, or a hundred other precious moments that might otherwise be forgotten, if I wasn’t there, sitting in the dark, one of 10,000 pairs of eyes turned eagerly towards the hero who has been a constant throughout my whole life and who now, against all odds, appears to have become the world's most unlikely rock star.

Do the child you used to be a favour, and take him to see Doctor Who Live.

October 24, 2010

If I didn’t have my usual seasonal mountain of man flu to contend with this week, I would of course still have been distracted from watching this week’s Sarah Jane Adventures by the big news story which effects all of us and whose far reaching implications won’t really be understood for at least a few months, probably some years. The public reaction to the announcement might have been less than stellar on the day, but I think that the decisions taken show strong leadership and long term thinking for which we should be grateful. Once we’ve found out what the proper trousers will be like alongside the leather sea jacket, man bag and wooden sonic screwdriver (can you believe they got Weta Workshop involved?) I think we’ll all be in agreement that it was about time that the Eighth Doctor received a new costume.

B’dum tish.

As you can see from that jokoid, there’s a huge difference between having an idea for a joke then executing it in such a way that the punch line can’t be seen coming towards you like a truck driven by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Amongst The Vault of Secrets many problems, was writer Phil Ford’s tendency to spend half of his time setting up jokes as though they're more important than such things as storytelling. So we have an alien action group with acronym BURPSS, founded by someone called Ocean Waters, with a member called Minty, androids called the Men in Black whose leader is called Mr Dread. Sure enough, every single one of these set ups resulted in a wise-crack or punch line and usually from Clyde’s lips.

You could say, well, it’s just for kids, kids will find it funny. But will they really? The only point of comparison I have is Rentaghostwhich was what was on tv when I was that age and used to have jokes about as sophisticated. I don’t remember laughing very much at Timothy Claypole, so I wonder if they’re really laughing when Langer makes the inevitable quip about toothpaste. Are they laughing at the references to Mulder and Scully, Will Smith and the Terminator films, all targeted well above their age group (to go along with the Starsky and Hutch and Jack Bauer references from this story’s prequel last year)? Much of this feels rather beneath the Doctor Who universe somehow. Slitheen granted, I thought we had higher standards.

Whilst we wonder about their sense of humour, we could also ponder the shortness of a child’s memory, because The Vault of Secrets wasn’t just a sequel for last year’s Prisoner of the Judoon but seemed to actively go out of its way to replay that story. Last year Androvax was trying to retrieve his own ship, this year it was retrieve his race’s ark ship. Last year the taciturn Judoon chased him with big guns, this year the taciturn Men In Black chased him with big guns. Last year Rani’s parents are capture ... you get the idea. The earlier admirable animation Dreamland was also strip-mined for its Area 51 references, not least the vault itself. I’m surprised it wasn’t revealed that Georgia Moffat’s Cassie and Ocean were family. Was this really the best way to count time before you know what?

Even individual scenes, like the vehicular humour returned, and somehow less funny since it was also another Terminator reference. Again. It's also incredible that after four years the kids can't tell when their best friend Sarah Jane isn't herself even with her back to them, shoulder's hunched. There’s a pernial discussion about how science fiction, and Doctor Who in particular, is doomed to repeat the same ideas and tropes over and over, but to this level of copy/paste? Can we expect in another twenty years the future’s equivalent of Alan Barnes will talking about The Vault of Secrets in a dvd extra, offering their version of his spirited defence for replacing Baker’s head for Pertwee’s in the TV Comic strip (cf, Stripped for Action – The Fourth Doctor). Or it could just be this cold making my grumpy.

Whatever, despite the shameless derivativeness of the script, production wise, this was still very robust, so couldn't, in the strictest sense, be unentertaining. The directing and performances were up to their usual standard, even if Mina Anwar never can decide if she’s in a cartoon or not (was Camille Coduri ever this broad?) and the interior of the vault as epic in CG scale as the gridlock in Gridlock or what we must assume was happening in orbit during The Big Bang. The episode was probably at its best when it brushing against elements of the parent series like the pyramids on Mars or the BURPSS and Chandras only having a superficial idea about the aliens having apparently forgotten now about the Dalek invasion. Is this an after effect of the rebooted universe or are we supposed to infer that Amy Pond still won’t remember the events of Journey’s End? I'm going back to bed to ponder, sleep and sneeze some more.

October 21, 2010

Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens - Exploring the Worlds of the Eleventh Doctor

Gratuitous plug time. Just when you thought the world was momentarily safe from 'scholar-fans' cluttering up the bookshelves with even more long-winded essays about the meaning of Matt Smith's fez, I'm afraid I'm about to disappoint you. Either that or cheer you up when I delightedly announce that I have one said volume about Doctor Who beating a path to your wallets. I can proudly say it's as 'scholar-fannish' (if that's a word) as it gets and somewhere in its freshly minted pages you're bound to read about the psychological impact of Rory's inside leg measurement on the fate of the universe. With a dash of Baudrillard.

To reiterate, this isn't a 'making of' or an exhaustive Andrew Pixley (no offence intended) 'they picked up that shot in the BBC car park on a wet Wednesday afternoon' episode guide type of book. The press release says (rustling of paper)...

"Cult television and film blogger Frank Collins has significantly expanded upon the original reviews from his popular Cathode Ray Tube website (and available on here, I hasten to add) to examine this latest series of adventures. He provides an in-depth analysis of episodes, characters, themes and ideas, and places Doctor Who within the wider cultural context of contemporary social, political, historical and psychological debates. A unique view of a television icon, providing much food for thought, this book is essential reading for fans of the new series."

I don't think I could have said that better myself. Oh, wait a minute. I did say that. I wrote the press release. Duh.

So, if you enjoyed my reviews of Series Five on here and you're hungry for oodles more detailed beard-stroking about Moffat's masterplan then this is definitely for you. Anyway, it's allegedly out on the 6th December and you can buy it at the discounted price of £12.49 direct from the publishers Classic TV Press. They also ship internationally. Why not pop over there and pre-order it? Go on, it means I'll be able to cover the extortionate cost of those tickets I lashed out on for Doctor Who Live. Oh, and it is available on Amazon if you feel you really must order it from them.

October 15, 2010

As you discovered, heading off to university is a scary business, especially since you’re barely old enough to know that checked hipster scarves are problematical at best. It’s all about change, though I’m the last person to give you any advice other than if a heavenly looking French girl invites you into her room on the second night, you go no matter what K9 says, you go. Honestly. You do not say, “Well I’m feeling very tired” or “That’s not something we do…” or whatever else might emanate from your lips bypassing your alien brain. Otherwise you’ll spend the next three years imagining what would have happened. Not that such a thing ever happened to me. Obviously.

To break out of the metafilter, largely because I can’t work out how to sustain it for the next however many paragraphs (I'll try to be brief), it’s quite brave of The Sarah Jane Adventures to introduce the concept of university to its young audience. True, many of them will have older siblings who’ve already driven the yellow beetle down the driveway and it’s treated like an extension of school (we’re not even told what he’ll be studying in “Oxford” though if it’s maths he should have gone to Manchester) but nevertheless it’s a reminder that our heroes aren’t getting any younger and that they’re now of teen drama age. What happens with Clyde and Rani finish their A-Levels?

if it’s maths he should have gone to Manchester

Writing out Luke was one of the The Nightmare Man’s three main functions. I don’t know the ins and outs of Tommy Knight’s departure, though the in-camera appearance for Maria's photo might hint that like Yasmin Paige it’s for educational reasons. But the loss of the character and K9 does have something of the destruction of the sonic in The Visitation about it; even taking into account that this is a kids show, the convenience of having a Doctor-lite super-genius on hand to “solve” the central mystery in each story as earlier identified by JNT does mean that too often the dramatic tension ebbs away.

The second function was of course to scare us witless. As our avatar in the dreamscape, Tommy very effectively communicated his fear, not just of nightmares, but of having nightmares for the first time, lacking the emotional props that most of us have to deal with them. The sight of him, lost in the void, his head shifting backwards and forwards was a horrible image, piercing our child-like anxieties about being totally alone, and if we’re young enough, without our parent’s care, home sick. Sorry, bare with me, I’m having another fresher’s flashback. Oh, that phone call.

That probably would have done the job even without Julian Bleech’s stunning turn as the villain; if Toby Jones’s similarly hewn Dream Lord was all about psychological terror, TNM’s power was in his elastic body, the Milliband-like boggling panda eyes and the voice, which like his previous emergences as Davros and in the even earlier The Ghostmaker, had the capacity to nip into your soul and poke about a bit. Even if budgetry concerns seemed to halt his passage into the other residences on Bannerman Road, Bleach demonstrated (just as the late Heath Ledger and countless other Jokers did before him), the scariest villains can be easily achieved with some face paint and utter unselfconsciousness.

Heath Ledger and countless other Jokers did before him

The final function was to reconfirm what makes the show work. Despite the various mentions of the timelord here to foreshadow his appearance in the next couple of weeks, with the main show now in other hands, and Torchwood in production stateside, SJA could be viewed as something of an orphan, a continuation of the Russell T Davies years. But really what we find are the same elements: the willingness to experiment with storytelling structure, the sense of fun not least the rather wonderful exchange between Mr Smith and K9, the budding screwball chemistry between Clyde and Rani and Liz Sladen still bursting with energy even after all these years (the older dream-like version of her also demonstrating the actress's often untapped comic range).

Now we await the return of Jo and the appearance of the Doctor and the first full script by RTD in ten months (Can you believe The End of Time was only in January? Doesn’t it feel like ten years ago?) and it’s mark of this story’s quality that didn’t simply feel like treading water. What we had here was an above average script from Joseph Lidster with some genuinely funny moments, clever direction from Joss Agnew and if the climax seemed to drag a bit, the methodology for final demolition of The Nightmare Man not quite clear, its philosophy, that friends who stick together can do anything, are brilliant, is generally a good thing. Until the second week when you realise that not everyone in the student hall is your friend.